I loved the beautiful shade of green that was in this kit and because this spread covers the beginning of February it paired really nicely with the pink. I loved the die cuts in this kit and I really loved that Golden card a lot. I had fun with some of the card kit digital elements this month because thankfully we finally got some rain. I love that digital papers were introduced to the digital shop this month and I really enjoyed having textured papers that perfectly matched the kit. It was so easy to clip them to the digital images and not have to do the extra steps myself.

The bottom center card was made by me with the digital papers and one of this months digital elements.

I really loved the Inbox stamp add on this month and but I also really wanted to add some stitching to my layout so I decided to combine the two. I used the digital versions of the stamp set to layout my pattern and dialed the opacity of the images way down so it was just a faint line showing (see image below). After it was printed I pierced along the lines with a piercing tool and then went back over with my needle and thread in the corresponding colors. It was a really simple, easy way to make my own custom stitching template.

My second layout is a combination of the Main Project Life® kit, the Report add on and the Spreadsheet add on. For this layout I used more of the royal blue elements that came in the kits and it was so fun to work with. It's such a beautiful color and I love how it pairs with the yellow pieces that I used.

I think my favorite thing in this months kits was the wood veneer pieces. These are two pieces that I typically would have horded for sure but loved that I was able to find a place to use these two. There is also one more that didn't make it in but will get used for sure.

I mean that hand, how cute is that! I also really loved what they did this month to the B side of the printed 3x4 cards. I adore the binder paper print and used the backs of two this month. I would sure love to see this again in future months. The title card as always was last and I had to use the cool Thickers that came in the main kit. I printed the 3 to 9 directly on the tag and planned to only use the bottom half but loved how it looked when I placed the remaining cut piece above the Thickers.

There are lots of little bits of digital in my spreads this month and I played around a bit with layering the digital elements underneath the photo and making them appear embossed. It was a fun technique to try and one I'm sure I'll use again.

To achieve this look yourself you will need two copies of the same photo and your digital element. Here is a look at my layers pallet which will help me better explain. The bottom layer would be your background. Above it you will need the first copy of your photo. Above that place your digital element in the place you want it and add a drop shadow that gives you the raised look you want. Above that you will place another copy of the photo, make sure you don't move the photo or it won't look seamless. You want this photo is the exact position as the one below it. You will then clip the very top photo to the digital element and this can be done by placing your cursor on the line between the top photo and the digital element and pressing the Alt key on your keyboard. When you see the little double circle appear click on the line to engage. This will clip the photo to the digital element.

Phew so much to share this reveal, I hope you enjoyed it all and I hope you'll make a point to check out the rest of the layouts the design team have uploaded to the gallery, it looks like its another really great month.

3 comments:

Thanks for sharing your amazing PL layout with us. I absolutely love watching your PL spreads. I have a quick question about using brushes and stamps on my photos.............when I use a brush on my photo and it gets close to the edge of the photo. It sometimes gets cut off when I print my photo even though the saved image does not show the text or image cut off of my computer screen. Can you possibly tell me what I may be doing wrong? I am new to adobe Photoshop and I really would love to use my stamps and brushes more often in my layout but I get frustrated when my images don't print as they appear.

Thanks so much! I'm not sure if you are printing your photos at home or having them printed by a service so I'll tell you what it might be for both scenarios.

If you are printing your photos at home check the print settings you have your printer set to. Borderless is always the default you want when printing photos. For my printer (a Canon) when I hit print I would then hit Properties, select the tab that says Print Settings, make sure Borderless is selected and then there will be a slider that says Amount of Extension. You want to make sure that it is slide all the way to the left or whatever on your printer is the least amount of extension. If you don't make these changes, the photo will get expanded or blown up which is what you do not want.

Now if you are printing your photos with a service Costco, Walgreens or some other print lab the same thing is happening with your photos. When I used to print all of my photos at Costco the same would happen to me. The only way around this if you use a print lab that I found is to physically crop and save each photo to exactly 4x6 or 3x4 or whatever size you want, save it as a .jpg and then upload the cropped image to their site. It should help minimize the extra expansion of the prints when they print them. Make sure you check your print labs FAQ's as well, they may have their own tips to avoid this. I will say that I found this to be a lot of extra work which is why I started printing my photos at home. I find I get exactly what I want when I do.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions. I appreciate it so very much:)

I currently print at home on my canon selphy. I have never noticed that function in the properties but I will take another look at it when I choose to print. I usually print Borderless but I will try your suggestions and hope for the best. Another heartfelt thank you for taking the time to respond to me. Have a wonderful day! :)